Review: Dark Poison - Book #1 Dark Brothers Series - Bec Botefuhr/Bella Jewel - March 2013 Scrolling through my Kindle the other night, I was in the mood for something older, something that felt like coming home. That's when I clicked on Dark Poison by Bec Botefuhr. The cover I remember is different from the one floating around now , mine was the self-published OG version, sitting on my Kindle since 2013, patiently waiting for me to fall back into it. And fall back into it I did. Reading this book was like stepping into a time machine set to 2013, back when indie authors were just beginning to find their footing and the market hadn't yet been flooded with the endless sameness we see today. This was a world where writers released books because they had a story to tell, not because they were pumping them out on a conveyor belt like James Patterson. It was also a world before Fifty Shades of Grey changed everything, before dark romance and erotica fiction became the juggernaut gen...

    Review: The Daughter in the Cellar - Yvette Davies - July 2026 There's something about a UK psychological thriller that just hits differently, isn't there? Less blood-splatter, more slow-creeping dread , the kind that settles into your bones over a cup of tea rather than jumping out at you. That's exactly what I found in The Daughter in the Cellar , and it's why I ended up loving it so much. At its heart, this is Violet's story, a woman who wanted nothing more than to be a mother, but was born without a uterus and never got the chance. Instead of accepting a life without that dream, she's spent years finding "daughters" of her own, brunette girls she takes and keeps, hoping this time it will stick. Three didn't last. Now there's Florence,  a young woman who thought she'd simply met a kind stranger willing to help her one ordinary night, only to wake up locked in a cellar, realising far too late what kind of help she'd actually acce...

Review: Monstrous Souls - Rebecca Kelly - June 2020 You know those moments where you're curled up on the sofa, scrolling through your Kindle with a cup of tea going cold beside you, just searching for something that grabs you? That was me when I stumbled across Monstrous Souls by Rebecca Kelly. Honestly, the title had me thinking I was about to dive into something dark and gothic  maybe even a YA horror. I was very much picturing brooding teenagers and supernatural beasties. Oh, how wrong I was, and oh, how pleasantly surprised I turned out to be! Monstrous Souls opens with a gut punch. Heidi wakes up in hospital as a teenager to discover that her best friend has been murdered and her sister has been kidnapped. As if that weren't devastating enough, Heidi herself  assumed dead has survived, but not unscathed. She's left with amnesia, the memories of that terrible night completely out of reach. It's the kind of opening that makes you sit up straighter and forget your te...

Review: Lies - Kylie Scott - July 2019 There is nothing I love more about the Bookstagram community than our Book Birthday Groups . This July, I was lucky enough to receive Lies by Kylie Scott an author I’ve "one-clicked" ever since her Stage Dive series first rocked my world years ago. As one of my favorite Australian authors, she never misses, and this latest read was no exception. We meet Betty , who is finally ready to walk away from her fiancé, Thom. She’s tired of his boring job as an insurance assessor and his constant habit of putting work first. However, as she leaves the house, it explodes behind her. Suddenly, Betty is kidnapped and thrust into a world of chaos. It turns out Thom isn't boring at all , he’s a special services agent . With a target on his team’s back, Betty is caught in the crossfire, forced into a high-stakes fight for survival alongside her now-ex-fiancé Thom. This was a fantastic, high-octane read that gave me major John Wick adventure ...

VBT# Review: The Stranger Inside - Ruth Harrow - September 2025  Lately, I’ve found myself drifting away from romance reads. Maybe it’s the season, maybe it’s just reader fatigue—but psychological thrillers have become my go-to comfort genre. There’s something oddly satisfying about curling up with a cuppa and diving into a story that grips you from page one and doesn’t let go until the final twist. The Stranger Inside by Ruth Harrow was exactly that kind of read—one I devoured in a single sitting, blanket wrapped around me, heart racing. We meet Zoe, a woman trying to rebuild her life after escaping an abusive relationship. She’s found solace in an online forum, offering advice to others in similar situations. It’s raw, real, and sadly relatable. One post catches her eye—a woman claiming her husband is controlling, even making her take photos in the supermarket. It’s eerie, and when Zoe spots someone doing just that in real life, she wonders: could this be the same woman? Her curi...

VBT# Woman Missing - Kaelin Wennerberg - August 2025 Have you ever read a book that completely frustrates you, and then you find yourself yelling "Nooooooooo!" as you turn the last page? That was absolutely me with Woman Missing, and honestly, I'm still kicking myself because it's been a few weeks since I finished it and I cannot for the life of me remember the main character's name. Yet somehow I can recall every other character and plot twist with crystal clarity. (Let's call our protagonist "J" for the sake of this review – don't judge me!) Wennerberg throws us straight into chaos from page one. J is desperately trying to win back her ex, Mikey, when a drunken night ends in absolute tragedy. She gets behind the wheel intoxicated and strikes a man, killing him. But here's where it gets chilling – with his dying breath, he warns her that "they" wouldn't be happy and would come after her. Those ominous words haunted me throughou...

Review: Lotus - Jennifer Hartmann - April 2021 Twenty-two years ago, Sydney and her best friend Oliver were playing and he went missing. He vanished without a trace. Sydney always hoped he wasn't hurt and that he was still out there somewhere, but as each year passed it seemed unrealistic. That was until recently when Oliver managed to escape where he had been captured and now made his way back to his family's home where his step-brother lives and next door to Sydney. He remembers some memories of Sydney whom he called Queen of the Lotus as when he was captured, he created some comics of his memories to keep him occupied. Sydney never stopped loving Oliver and even after all these years, the romance is still sizzling and we can see that these two are perfect for one another. We also learn why Oliver was taken in the first place and how it relates to an incident that happened to Sydney's sister when they were younger. This book also touches on the sexual abuse of a minor and...

Review: Amnesia - Ellie Grace - June 2024 I had been excited to read this book as another of my top themes/tropes in books is the amnesia storyline and when I saw that Kelly Elliott whom I had enjoyed some of her other books had started up a romantic suspense line under the pen name Ellie Grace, I knew I wanted to read it and requested it from Give Me Books Promotions. As I expected, this book was a great read as we first meet Mallory who sadly is your perfect victim as she has no family and no friends, so no one to know she is missing as such as she had also been staying and was about to leave the motel. On her last night at the motel, she is kidnapped from the room and taken to a basement where she finds in the dirt a locket and one night, manages to escape. She runs for her life and eventually after a couple of days is found on Liam's ranch by Liam when is out on a horse ride. Liam brings her back to the ranch and starts to care for her, we also learn that Liam's fiancee E...

       Review: Minutes to Kill - Book #2 Scarlet Falls Novel - Melinda Leigh - June 2015 I had tried hard to try and clear my TBR bookshelf this month in June. However, the majority of books I tried, I just couldn't get into. Therefore, my trusty Kindle came in handy, and turned to ebooks that had been sitting on my ebook reader for a while. I have always enjoyed reading Melinda Leigh's mysteries and so I turned to one set in Scarlet Falls. Minutes to Kill starts by us reading as a young teenager is trying to escape her pimp as her dream of living a new life turned into a nightmare. On this evening, she runs into Hannah who is a lawyer. Hannah does her best to try and help, but in doing so is attacked and almost left for dead. The young teen is snatched and Hannah ends up in hospital. This event coincides with her heading back home to Scarlet Falls as she is planning to housesit for her brother and also learn some more about her sibling's case who was recently kill...